Automatic Labs aims to help people drive smarter and bring the power of connectivity to every car. Their award-winning connected car adapter and mobile app has taken what used to be overly technical information and made it digestible for the average consumer. Automatic’s innovative Bluetooth 4.0 adapter plugs into a car's diagnostic (OBD-II) port to provide driver behavior feedback, trip logging, a parking tracker and crash alert service.

Launched in 2013, Automatic has grown quickly with many early tech adopters not only buying their product, but also becoming part of a large, passionate community of users. The company’s growth has continued through word-of-mouth and groundbreaking partnerships, like an integration with Ford Motors and a recent collaboration with Nest to make sure your house is the right temperature to welcome you home as you pull into your driveway. They even provide an API to allow developers to get creative with their service and extend the Automatic platform.

Wanted: Elegant User Experience and Rock-Solid Platform

Automatic Labs wanted to create a high-quality user experience that would attract a loyal customer base, and they wanted to develop their app in the most efficient way. To do so, the team knew it would need to focus maximum attention on product development. They needed both a platform to support its hardware as well as a customer-facing application. The team needed to quickly push updates to connected devices as new features became available, which would require frequent product updates and a reliable platform to host its technology.

Delivering a Superior User Experience on Heroku

Admittedly “obsessive about creating great user experiences in well-engineered products,” Automatic Labs knew the Heroku platform would provide the flexibility their product required while allowing them to focus less on infrastructure and more on user experience.

We use Heroku Postgres, performance dynos and a dozen or so Heroku add-ons to run our service. This allows us to spend our time building a great product rather than troubleshooting server performance and building internal tools.
Rob Ferguson, Director, Engineering, Automatic Labs

The ability to quickly respond to feedback from their early adopters, push frequent updates to their devices and continuously deliver customer value is critical. The Automatic Labs team uses the Heroku platform for both development and production and uses a variety of Heroku Add-ons to provide infrastructure services, like monitoring, testing, alerts and logging.

Reliable performance is essential to Automatic’s core product in order to deliver real-time analytics to customers and maintain its partnerships with trusted brands Amazon, Ford Motors, Best Buy and Apple.

As our customer base grows, we know we can count on Heroku to support our performance needs.
Rob Ferguson, Director, Engineering, Automatic Labs

App Experience

Automatic delivers a superior user experience while making your smartphone a diagnostic tool for your car and training you to be a better driver. It’s simple, easy to use and works with iOS and Android phones. You simply plug the Automatic car adapter into your OBD-II port under your dashboard, download the Automatic app and enter a 6-digit PIN code to sync over Bluetooth. When you first connect, Automatic instantly knows the type of car you are driving.

To help you optimize your driving habits, Automatic scores your driving and provides the rough cost of your trip based on route and local gas prices. The app suggests smoother driving habits to increase your MPG, alerting you when you are speeding, accelerate too hard or slow down too fast. You can see a history of your trips, complete with map routes, and Automatic can even tell you where you parked.

Automatic saves its users money and time on repairs, speeding tickets and gas. Should your check-engine light comes on, no problem, Automatic can diagnose and fix minor issues and will even provide a map of nearby mechanics. If you are in an accident, Automatic alerts 911 automatically and can even notify loved ones.

Is your company looking to differentiate itself in the marketplace with an innovative connected-device and mobile app? Automatic is a great example of a customer disrupting the automotive space with an elegant mobile app and IoT product. For more information, contact Heroku today.

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More about Automatic Labs

Based in San Francisco, Automatic Labs was founded in 2012 by a group of transportation and user interface experts with a mission to connect your car to your smartphone. Automatic Labs has since partnered with Amazon, Ford Motors, Best Buy and Apple, bringing their product to thousands of users. For more information, visit: www.automatic.com.